Monday, February 13, 2012

The limits of the welfare state

The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, has raised the possibility that Swedes might need to work until the age of 75 before they get the pension.

It seems that the limits of the welfare state have finally been reached. The choice for Swedes is either to cut back state social engineering programmes or to work an additional ten years to pay for them.

The Swedish PM favours working until the age of 75. I can't see that happening on a large scale. Most people are not as robust in their 70s; perhaps they could work part-time at a relatively low stress job, but for many people more than that is not realistic.

It's another example of the West going backwards. For a long time the retirement age edged downward. In Australia there are some who were even able to retire at 55. But the trend is now changing. The UK recently began a process of pushing the retirement age upward and now the Swedish PM is suggesting 75 as a retirement age.

Yeah, while elderly Swedes are at work those vigorous youths can rob their homes in the leisure of daylight hours. Maybe they'll even hang around to rape and murder them, relieving the government from giving them pensions.

The left is engaging in suicide by proxy, objectively killing themselves with other peoples bodies - you and I that is.

It's paganism reincarnate, with a salacity for human sacrifice in worship of mortal concupiscence.

Very good comment, Anonymous 12:14:00pm. Very good...However, what is occurring in the English speaking West, for example, is not "suicide". It is more like "genocide". Truly, a very nasty situation in which we find ourselves.

Retirement age to be increased to 67 years of age or even 75, fits in neatly with a previous blog on falling male incomes (obviously though, not for those men engaged in professional activities and banking).

But raising the retirement age won't solve the underlying financial problems. If we had a correct financial system which reflected the actual economic facts, the retirement age would be going the other way i.e. lowered to either age 55 or certainly no more than age 60. Incidentally, there is no need to fund old agepensions from ever increasing taxation. A national dividend is a worthy alternative. An example for such a dividend can be found in Alaska with distribution from its oil revenue fund.